


home and hearth

by mothwrites



Series: tripartite [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mentor/Protégé, Platonic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 20:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7237966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothwrites/pseuds/mothwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was hard enough juggling two soulmates. Tony had never counted on adding a fifteen-year-old into the mix. (Post Civil War.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	home and hearth

**Author's Note:**

> In the same universe as "first, Second, and always", but can be read as a stand-alone if you understand the principle. (First soulmates are romantic, Seconds are platonic, and Thirds are a mentor/protégé relationship.) Published hastily, let me know if there are any glaring mistakes.

“Come home,” Tony growled into the voicemail receiver of Bruce’s burner phone. “And don’t ignore this, because this isn’t, for once, a drunken I-love-you, I-miss-you call. This is a _I-met-my-Third_ call _._ This is a _he’s-fifteen_ call. _Banner_. What the _fuck_ do I do with a fifteen-year-old?”

Tony snapped the phone shut with a half-hearted scream and sunk down into the sofa nestled in the corner of his workshop. Deep down, a selfish part of him had always hoped that he’d meet his own mentor one day instead of having to look after someone else. He looked at the arm of the sofa where Peter Parker had been perched about an hour before. Just like with Bruce when they’d first met, Tony was having trouble communicating with the kid. They could only speak aloud, but that didn’t mean Tony wasn’t picking up the waves of awkward shyness and defeat radiating from his Third. Peter had taken the hint and left as soon as it started to get dark, clutching the Spider-Man mask in his hands as he left (through the window.) Tony knew un-objectively that Peter could jump off the top of the freaking Empire State Building and be perfectly fine, but it didn’t stop the irrational shot of terror that shot through him as the boy left the windowsill. Peter gained his balance and pulsed something comforting back before Spider-Man came out in full force. Tony tuned him out.

Bruce had been on the run again for six months. Tony had a new found respect for Betty Ross. Separation was a _bitch._ Firsts had the strongest connection out of any soulmates, so Tony often found himself waking up in the middle of the night; sweating, heart racing, feet inexplicably sore. He wondered if Bruce could feel his despair right now.

 _Fifteen._ The kid deserved better.

*

"I'm being serious! I can't just drop out of school."

"Might be a little dangerous. Better tell aunt hottie I'm taking you - "

Tony’s fingers had only brushed the doorknob – he wasn’t being _serious_ – when he got hit with the flying blast of spongey, deceptively strong webbing.

 Peter drew himself up to his full height and stared him down. " _Don't_ tell Aunt May."

 "All right.” This was the moment, Tony would recall later, when everything _clicked._ “Spider-Man." He nodded in acknowledgement as the kid’s eyes grew wide and he brought a quivering hand to his mouth. "Get me out of this," Tony snapped.

 "Sorry! I'll get -" Peter raced to his desk and grabbed the first sharp thing he could find, a compass, to slash the webbing and get him free. “But you can’t tell her, please.”

 “I wasn’t going to,” Tony said reluctantly. “But I do need you to come with me.” The offer he’d been so enthusiastic about putting on the table felt sour now that he knew Peter would more than likely do anything he asked. Jesus, he really hadn’t thought this through. The protective instinct he hadn’t been counting on surged up as he thought about what he was doing; effectively, sending a child into battle.

“Yeah,” Peter nodded fervently, “Of course. I’ll just grab – “

“Not that,” Tony said immediately. He almost winced at the sight of the paltry home-made costume stuffed into a ball at the edge of the room. Were those swimming goggles? He shook his head. “We’ll make a detour. You need a new suit. I’m not about to send you into a fight wearing a unitard.”

“It is _not_ a unitard,” Peter said. “Do you have time for that?”

“’Course. Germany can wait a little while. Can’t bring someone onto the team who looks like they’re attending their first comic-con, you’ll embarrass me.” _Your safety is more important than this,_ he didn’t say, but Peter seemed to understand what he meant.

He smiled softly. “I’ll just tell my aunt something. Give me a minute.”

Tony stared around the room that he’d been left alone in. It was about the size of his bathroom in the tower, maybe smaller. A single bed with faded sheets, one desk, countless piles of broken or ancient tech, some comic books and figures and – oh God, no, was that an Iron Man t-shirt strewn haphazardly near the laundry basket? He suppressed a shiver. Of all the kids in all the world.

 

*

 

“Kid, I’m not saying I don’t want you around. I’m saying that if you were a goldfish, you’d be dead already.”

“I’m not a goldfish!” Peter snapped. “I’m a human being with feelings and a soulmate who won’t _talk_ to me!”

The two of them stood opposite each other in the communal living area. Tony had snapped after Peter’s constant attempts to communicate with him non-verbally had left him awash with pulses of negative emotion and confusion. Tony wasn’t used to the surge of protective instinct that rose up in him whenever Peter radiated how lonely and upset he was; which was often, since he was a fifteen year-old who had no idea how to calm his output. So instead of helping him he’d freaked out and yelled, because he was a selfish old man with a missing First, an injured Second, and a Third that he wouldn’t put in danger too.

He hadn’t counted on Peter yelling _back._ This was new.

“Look, kid.” Tony sat down, suddenly weary. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout.” He patted the other sofa cushion, and Peter gingerly took a seat beside him. They’d only just progressed to “Tony” from “Mr Stark”: deep conversations about _feelings_ were a whole new ball-game.

“I know,” Peter said simply. “I can feel it. Because, you know. Soulmates.”

“Yeah. Right. Man, I should have been less harsh on Bruce the first time around. Having three of you is _weird._ ”

“Bad weird?” Peter asked softly. Tony’s heart ached.

“No, I didn’t mean –“

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” _God,_ Tony thought to himself, _I’m bad at this. How does Bruce do it?_ Bruce and Rick had such an easy camaraderie, one could easily mistake them for brothers. Peter was more like the shy, awkward nephew you’d been told to look after at a family reunion. “Jesus,” he said out loud, “I can barely look after _myself._ ”

“You don’t need to _look after me,_ ” Peter immediately said. Tony almost smiled at his honest-to-god _pout._ “I could lift you up over my head, you know.”

“Adorable. But someone needs to keep an eye on you and as I’ve now been put in this position of responsibility - “

“So it’s a _job_ , now?”

Tony got the feeling he was making this worse. “I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t need to look after me,” Peter said, determinedly staring at the floor. His voice had grown angrier, and somehow more vulnerable. “ _You’re not my dad_.”

Tony was taken aback by the sudden wave of misery that accompanied his words, and then realised that Peter’s lips hadn’t moved.

_“Kid…”_

Peter flinched, and looked up at him wildly. “Did I – I didn’t mean to – “

“Peter, don’t freak out,” Tony said immediately, but Peter had already jumped up and was looking around frantically for his mask.

“I have to go.”

“No, you don’t.” He really had to get across to Peter somehow how hard it was to lie over a telepathic connection. “Look, I’m not trying to replace – “

“ _Bye,_ ” Peter said aloud in a rush. Before Tony could blink, he’d cleared the floor of the communal area and had leaped out into the night.

 _“Peter, come back,”_ he thought furiously, racing to the windowsill. But the kid was long gone, and in the back of his head he heard the unmistakable sound Peter tuning him out. He groaned and kicked a nearby desk.

“Mr Stark,” FRIDAY alerted him. “There is an emergency situation to which Colonel Rhodes would like to attract your attention.”

A mission briefing statement flicked up, in the new format that they’d had to get used to from their new authorities. Tony skimmed it and sighed.

“Friday?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Prepare the suit.” Maybe a mission would clear his head of the teenage anxieties he was reluctantly privy to now.

*

_"And you don’t have to keep me around, I promise I’ll leave as soon as you open your eyes, but you have to do that, okay? You have to open your eyes. You have to.”_

Tony tried to follow the request, but he just couldn’t. Not his eyes, or his hands, or his mouth. He couldn’t even panic. It was like lying in fog. The voice continued to talk to him; nervous, but soothing, and unrecognizable.

_“Maybe I can annoy you into waking up? I seem to annoy you whatever I do.”_

_That_ rang a bell. He tried to flex his fingers again. There was a tingle.

_“Rhodey told me to just keep talking. He was nice. I think he likes me more than you do. He’ll be back soon. Wouldn’t it be great if you were awake when he got here? Come on. Dare you. What’s it gonna take, huh? Do I have to cry? Because I’ll do it. I’ll cry and it’ll be super embarrassing and everyone will blame you. DO you want that? Huh?”_

The voice did, in fact, sound a little tearful. It tugged at his heart and squeezed. But it wasn’t Rhodey. It couldn’t be Bruce.

_“All right, buddy. You asked for it.”_

_“Peter.”_

The voice stopped. Suddenly, there were hands breaking through the fog; grasping at his shoulders, at his chest, at his face.

“Tony!” His voice was louder now, and Tony dimly registered that he had switched to speaking aloud. “Stay awake, okay? I’ll get Bruce.”

_“Bruce?”_

Light flooded in as his eyes snapped open at the mention of his First’s name. A new hand gripped his; strong, warm, and calloused. He recognized it immediately. A voice rang out in his mind, clear as a bell. It was brusque, and those who didn’t know it well could mistake it for cold.

_“Wake the hell up.”_

_“Did Rhodey call you? Man,”_ Tony said, getting a feel for the physical world again, _“do Seconds panic or what?”_

 _“He didn’t call me,”_ Bruce said as he helped Tony into a sitting position. _“He didn’t need to, idiot. I passed out when you got hit. Rick called for a ride.”_

The mention of Bruce’s Third shocked Tony into full consciousness. He pulled Bruce towards him by the wrist.

_“Don’t let him leave.”_

Bruce frowned in confusion, and then turned to look at Peter: frozen in place half-way out of the window.

“Kid,” Bruce barked out loud. His voice was rough from worry and lack of sleep. “Don’t even think about it.”

Peter’s eyes widened like a rabbit caught in headlights, but he acquiesced and climbed down.

“Good boy. Now make yourself useful. Go get the doctor.”

Peter fled all too readily.

Bruce turned back and smirked at Tony. _“Christ. I see what you mean.”_

 _“You’re really here?”_  Tony asked.

The words came out small and hopeful, like that of a child’s. It softened Bruce, and he smiled as he pressed a kiss to Tony’s forehead. “I’m really here.”

Peter arrived with Rhodey and the doctor and Tony got distracted by a blur of questions and tests, but he could still feel all three of them there; glowing dimly like candles or a nearby fire. His home and hearth.

“Come here,” Tony said softly. It was late. The doctors had gone, and Bruce had fallen asleep on the sofa after shooing any other potential interlopers away. Peter was staring at him with uneasy apprehension. “Come here,” Tony repeated, hoping he didn’t sound confrontational, rather than caring. He even smiled. Peter took a few step forwards.

“Thanks,” Tony said, as soon as he was sure Peter wasn’t going to run.

“What for?”

Tony didn’t know how he could have ever not recognized that voice. “For looking after me.” He paused. “I get it now. How this works. How it’s reciprocal. I promise – or at least, I’m gonna try really hard – to never let you down like that again.”

There was one horrible moment where Tony thought that he wasn’t forgiven. Then Peter’s breath hitched, and before Tony could say anything else he’d run forward, barreling into Tony’s chest.

“You _asshole,_ ” Peter sobbed.

Tony ignored the throbbing pain in his chest in order to hold his ridiculous fifteen-year-old Third close. “Yeah, yeah. I know. We’ll be okay now, yeah? We’ll figure this out. You and me.”

“Sure,” Peter sniffled. Tony could feel the day weighing down on him, and patted the kid consolingly on the back. He could also feel his lungs struggling to expand.

_“Now get off me.”_

_“Right.”_


End file.
